She spoke gayly; she smiled. And in the smile which illuminated her closing remarks he believed he discovered the instinctive contentment which a woman feels when concocting some deception. The facility with which Hippolyte succeeded in deceiving her mother displeased him. He thought once more, and not without regret, of the marital vigilance. "Why suffer so cruelly on account of this liberty," he reflected, "when it is in the service of my pleasure? I do not know what I would give could I get away from my fixed idea, from my suspicions which do her injustice. I love her, and I wrong her; I love her, and I believe her capable of an unworthy action!"
"We must not go too far," she said. "You ought to know of some peaceful spot, secluded, full of trees, interesting. Not Tivoli, nor Frascati."
"Take the Baedeker—it's there on the table—and look."
"Let us look together."
She took the red book, knelt close to the couch on which he was seated, and with pretty gestures and infantile grace she began to turn over the pages. Every few moments she read a few lines in a low tone.
He sat watching her, fascinated by the finesse of the nape of her neck, from which the little brown curls mounted towards the crown of her head, twisted into a sort of coil. He looked at the two little brown spots, beauty spots, the Twins placed one by the side of the other on the whiteness of the velvety neck to which they gave an ineffable charm. He remarked that she wore no earrings. In fact, for two or three days she had not worn her sapphire earrings. "Has she sacrificed them on account of some money embarrassment? Who knows? She may be suffering silently from the cares of hard, daily necessities." He had to forcibly compel himself to consider seriously the thought which haunted him. This thought was as follows: "When she becomes tired of me (and that will not be very long), she will fall into the hands of the first comer who will offer her an easy life, and who, in exchange for sensual pleasure, will keep her from want. This man may even be the mercante of whom Exili spoke. Disgusted with petty miseries, she will triumph over the other disgust; she will adapt herself. It is even possible that she will not have to overcome any repugnance."
He remembered the mistress of one of her friends, the Countess Albertini. This woman, separated from her husband, left free without fortune, had descended progressively to lucrative amours, having enough cleverness to save appearances. He remembered a second example, which illustrated even more truly the possibility of what he feared. And confronted with this possibility, which emerged from the unfathomable future, he felt an inexpressible pain. Henceforth his apprehensions would give him no truce. Sooner or later, he was fated to witness the fall of the creature he had placed so high. Life was full of such forfeitures.
"I have found nothing," she said in a disappointed tone.
"Gubbio, Narni, Viterbo, Orvieto! Look at the map of Orvieto: the Monastery of Saint Peter, the Monastery of Saint Paul, the Monastery of Jesus, the Monastery of Saint Bernardin, the Monastery of Saint Louis, the Convent of Saint Dominique, the Convent of Saint Francis, the Convent of the Servants of Mary."
She read in a sing-song tone, as if she were reciting a litany. All at once she began to laugh, threw back her head, and offered her beautiful forehead to the lips of her lover. She was in one of those moments of expanding kindness which gave her the air of a young girl.